AS GOOD AS GOD, AS CLEVER AS THE DEVIL
The Impossible Life of Mary Benson

‘an utterly absorbing biography….devilishly good’
-Alexandra Harris in The Guardian

‘this fascinating book does a brilliant job of revealing just how permissive Victorian society actually was’
-Daisy Goodwin in The Sunday Times

 ‘rich and utterly engaging’
-Kate Williams in BBC History Magazine

‘impossible to resist’
-Judith Flanders in The Sunday Telegraph

‘I thoroughly recommend this sympathetic portrait of a fascinating woman’
-A.N. Wilson in The Oldie

‘an imaginative and sympathetic biography….a demonstration of the richness and  articulacy of late Victorian life’
Matthew Sweet in History Today

Further Reviews:

Jane Ridley in The Spectator

Lisa Gee in The Independent

D.J. Taylor in The Independent

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LORENZO DA PONTE
The Adventures of Mozart’s Librettist in the Old and New Worlds

Nominated for the LA Times Book Prize.
Published in the USA as The Librettist of Venice

Praise for LORENZO DA PONTE

“An adventure pure and simple…crammed with amorous intrigues, narrow escapes, comic mishaps and last-minute rescues.” The Sunday Telegraph
Read Further

“Irresistible reading, even for those who prefer Italy’s olives to its opera.”
Read Further 

Further Reviews:

From The Observer

From Washington Post

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HISTORY PLAY

The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe

Selected by Sir Peter Hall as a ‘favourite read’ of 2004, in The Observer

Praise for HISTORY PLAY

“With gobsmacking audacity, Bolt recreates an alternative life of Marlowe that compellingly views the known facts from a different angle.” The Independent

“A triumph…. It has both a serious remit and enough puns and anagrams to make Shakespeare (or possibly Marlowe) blush. It made me laugh out loud. And, most of all, it made me want to go back to the plays. This was a book that needed to be done perfectly or not at all. It is perfect.” The Spectator

“History Play’s rich and meticulously researched portrait of the 16th and 17th centuries is written with a keen sense of Elizabethan metaphor and contemporary analogy.” Times Literary Supplement.